


the case of the happy returns

by brella



Series: you don't have to worry and i'm too old to try [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Five Years Later, Future Fic, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Supernatural Elements, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 20:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2482004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MABEL'S COOL RAD SUMMER 2018 CHECKLIST: </p><p>1. Solve some SPOOKY MYSTERIES<br/> 2. Help Dipper PICK UP BABES with his NEW TATS<br/> 3. Find PRACTICAL USE for GRAPPLING HOOK ha ha just kidding grappling hooks don't need no stinkin' pragmatism! <br/>4. Throw a SLAMMIN' SUMMERWEEN PARTY with Grunkle Stan's permission <br/>5. On approaching birthday, inform USELESS BUT CHARMING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS of brand spanking new status as HIP YOUNG ADULTS instead of TROUBLESOME MINORS <br/>6. Think of MORE THINGS to ADD to COOL RAD SUMMER 2018 CHECKLIST </p>
            </blockquote>





	the case of the happy returns

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily inspired by [this art thing by Tumblr user galaxyspeaking](http://galaxyspeaking.tumblr.com/post/95134465219/season-2-of-gravity-falls-just-started-and-with-it). I love me some tattooed Dipper and flabbergasted Pacifica and did I mention Mabel? And did I also mention teens being doofs? And did I also mention 80s slang?  
> Thus, here we are. A five-years-later 'verse of my own ridiculous design. It's less an actual linear story and more a universe I'll be writing disjointed vignettes for, but that's what summer _is_ , isn't it? Surprises. Nothings that might as well be somethings. MONSTERS!

So Dipper is running from a chupacabras. That’s where he’s at right now, life-situation-wise. It’s pretty crazy, even by his standards.

He should have listened to Mabel. That thought, coupled with the fact that he’s actually managing to bound over assorted logs and rocks and other forest hazards while carrying a rebellious goat, is even crazier. The half moon overhead flashes in and out of his peripheral through the thickening canopy, splattering occasional nacreous light onto the forest floor. His limbs are already sore from so much chaotic pumping and scrambling and also from the carrying of the rebellious goat. Sweat gathers in his hair and sticks it to his forehead, to his eyebrows. (That’s also what’s in his eyes. Not tears. Never.) His lungs feel like somebody’s holding a match under them. A lit one. Just to be clear.

He’s dumb enough to glance over his shoulder and see that the creature is only a few paces behind him, eyes red and smoldering and leaving luminous streaks in the deep night. The spines along its back clack and rustle as it gallops. It unleashes a furious roar at him, sharp yellow teeth and spittle flying. He yelps and tries to run faster.

About the goat thing, by the way. It’s Gompers. Gompers had been the bait. The useless, extremely nonchalant bait, like, seriously, Dipper is tempted to schedule this thing for some kind of goat-type psych evaluation, based on how little it had reacted to a _chupacabras jumping out of the bushes at it_.

A picture. That’s all Dipper had wanted. A picture, maybe a biological sample, or something. For science. But Mabel loves Gompers and he’s an essential fixture at the Mystery Shack even though everyone complains about him, so—so Dipper couldn’t just _leave_ him, because he’s a sucker, just like Grunkle Stan says.

Adroitly, he swings his way under a fallen tree, just as Gompers starts to chew on his hair. _Why are goats so heavy?_ Who allowed this?

The chupacabras makes another unearthly sound, but Dipper could swear that it’s a little farther away now. Doesn’t matter. He keeps running. Even though what Mabel describes as his “lanky teen boy body” is definitely on the brink of total collapse. Even though he has no idea where he’s going. Even though he really has to pee, man, he should have _done that_ before he _left_.

He flies over a patch of leaves and launches himself off of the ground enough to leap over one of the woods’ trademark babbling brooks, landing on the opposite bank without missing a beat to keep sprinting. Gompers bleats boredly.

“Man,” Dipper chuffs, squinting at him out of the corner of his eyes, “I just saved—your stupid _goat life_ —and we’re having—an awesome chase scene. Ease up—on the sarcasm—all right?”

Gompers licks his ear. He groans, pulling a horrible face.

“Gross,” he puffs. “I should’ve—let you— _die_.”

Wait’ll the marching band guys hear about _this one_.

 

* * *

 

“Tattoos,” Stan grunts with furrowed eyebrows and a flat frown seconds after opening the front door. “Well, kid, that’s. That’s new.”

Dipper scowls and puffs his cheeks indignantly, suitcase still held in one hand, offhandedly noting how weird it is to be staring at Stan from eye level instead of having to crane back to look at him. He is sweaty and smells weird from the cross-country bus ride and had been forced to endure countless games of Go Fish with Mabel and he does _not_ deserve such a tepid reaction to the totally _cool_ tattoos snaking up both of his arms from the wrist to the shoulder.

He had been hoping to earn at least, you know, some widened eyes, maybe a terse but ultimately touching statement of approval. Grunkle Stan has tattoos; he should _appreciate_ this development; he should think Dipper’s _cool_ now. That had been Dipper’s ace in the hole after being kept away from Gravity Falls for three consecutive summers (for varying reasons, not the least of which had been that their parents had actually wanted to spend it with them for once). The tattoos had been his _wild card_. Uno®-style.

“New?” he exclaims, voice no longer cracking under all of the outrage. “That’s all you have to say, _seriously_? They’re _awesome_.”

“I didn’t think you had it in ya, is all,” Stan explains, scratching the gray stubble on his chin and continuing to squint at Dipper. “Low pain tolerance, tendency to cry like a squonk that’s just seen its own reflection. You know.”

“ _Hah_!” Mabel brays, punching Dipper encouragingly in the shoulder and causing him to curse and drop his suitcase. “Don’t worry, Grunkle Stan, he still cried for like half an hour afterwards! Probably would’ve cried _during the during_ , but we think he was unconscious.”

“Mabel—”

“’Cause he fainted.”

“Mabel, _shut up_ ,” Dipper grumbles, shoving at her.

She beams at him, all braceless teeth, outshining even her cropped electric blue sweater and ultraviolet legwarmers. He has no idea how she’d kept her hair in such good shape on the bus ride. Oh, look. Back in Gravity Falls for ten minutes and he’s already found a baffling mystery.

Swing and home run, Dipper. Swing and home run.

“ _A_ -ha-ha!” Grunkle Stan barks, clapping one hand on each of their taller shoulders. “Welcome back, ya punks! Bring your stuff in already, AC’s running!”

Grunkle Stan’s AC is just five fans all aimed at the chair he sits in in the TV room. Dipper would call him out on it, totally, but they just got here, and there’ll be plenty of room for that in the next couple of months, so, you know, all relative.

The Shack looks exactly the same, if slightly _more_ crammed with hokey paraphernalia and bric-a-brac than before (which Dipper had not thought was possible, but then again, look where they _are_ ), and it still smells a little like old cheese and a little like cheap cologne and a little like mothballs (an odor Mabel had once described as _utterly perfumerous, hon hon_ ). The staircase up to the attic looks much more rickety than he remembers and is probably no longer safe, which probably means Mabel will resort to taking her grappling hook up to that area, which concerns him.

“Okay, okay,” Mabel singsongs, setting her suitcase aside and hunkering down, spreading her arms wide, “Where’s my handsome boy?”

Before the almost instantaneous response of distant oinking from the kitchen can fully manifest itself as Waddles leaping into her embrace, heavy footsteps hit the floorboards from down the hallway to their left.

“Oh, sorry, dudes; I heard the words ‘handsome’ and ‘boy’ used in conjunction with each other and figured I was being summoned.”

Dipper grins, bags dropping to the floor, and steps nimbly over Mabel’s crouching form to give Soos what has to be the most enthusiastic and touching reunion fistbump on record.

Soos looks exactly the same. There is a legitimate possibility that he is wearing the same _shirt_. Dipper wonders, briefly, if all those jokes he used to hear Grunkle Stan make about the guy never growing up held more water than he'd thought at the time, but then he figures, nah.

“Soos! Man!” he yells, flinging his arms in the air. “Check it out! I’m tall now!”

“ _Ummmm_ ,” Mabel sings in a high voice before Soos can properly voice how impressed he is, and when Dipper turns around to squint at her, he sees that Waddles is cradled in her arms with his cheek squashed against hers. “Don’t go _too_ crazy there, bro-bro. I’ve still got a millimeter on you.”

“Yeah, in what, your own mind?” Dipper retorts, sticking his tongue out at her despite the fact that dignified and cool teenage boys do not do such things.

“Tchah,” Mabel chuffs, raising her eyebrows and stroking the side of Waddles’s face. “Where it _counts_.”

“Dude, don’t wig out, but there’ve been some crazy bonkers mysteries since you two left,” Soos says excitedly. He twiddles his fingers together, guinea pig teeth clamping down on his lower lip when he grins.

“Like the mystery of how Stan hasn’t _died_ yet,” a voice drawls from the direction of the gift shop.

“Keep up that kinda talk and you’re fired, missy!” Grunkle Stan barks, shaking his fist at the door. “Sell, don’t rebel!”

“Ugh,” the voice groans with unparalleled power of exasperation. “Words don’t exist to describe how lame you are.”

“Wendy is edgy now,” Soos says sagely, lifting his head and closing his eyes, clasping his hands at his chest. “She has shaved one side of her head, and plays the e-lectric guitar.”

“Whoa,” Mabel marvels, shaking one hand sideways as though she’s burned herself. “ _Edgy_.”

“So edgy,” Soos agrees.

“I’m feeling pretty edgy myself,” Stan grouses belligerently. “Like I’m about to push you all off the edge of a cliff if you don’t quit yappin’.”

“Can we back up to the part about crazy-bonkers mysteries?” Dipper asks, gesticulating accordingly. “Because I am _down_ to get down on _that_.”

“Your _mom_ was down to get down in _bed_ last night!” Mabel cries, braying out a laugh.

“Not even gonna touch that,” Dipper deadpans.

“The Dipper Pines story!” Mabel shrieks, and then grabs one of Waddles’s stubby legs and high-fives him. Or… high-hoofs him? Pigs are weird. “Yeah!”  

At Soos’s blank look, Dipper sighs in surrender and slaps a palm onto his face. “We’ve been watching a lot of cop shows.”

“Cops?!” Stan roars, eyepatch flying open from the sheer force of his horror. “Where?! Holy Moses; I gotta empty the safe!”

Behind the hand covering his face, Dipper stifles a smile and lets himself feel kind of shmoopy about family and feelings and stuff, for a good few seconds.

Waddles oinks.

 

* * *

 

Dipper’s List of Crucial Summer Updates:

  1.     Reggie Corduroy is taller than he is now, which infuriates him, because playing a sousaphone in the marching band next to a euphonium player who is a few inches taller than you just _looks stupid_ , and Reggie is throwing off the _whole aesthetic_ , and Dipper is seriously considering not being friends with him anymore.
  2.     Soos hadn’t been exaggerating about Wendy being edgy now, but she’s still the same old Wendy underneath the black leather jackets and the asymmetric haircut and the faint pot smell and the guitar that she stole from Robbie in order to take over his band and make it a national indie sensation, so that’s good, at least. She guffaws at the same kind of things and climbs trees to avoid work and has dance parties with Mabel. She just finished her junior year as an Oregon Duck, studying architecture and photography, and she _might_ be dating Robbie again? Or maybe Tambry? He wishes everyone in Wendy’s group of friends could be as obvious about their love for each other as Nate and Lee are.
  3.     The secret bedroom with the body-swapping carpet has been sealed off again, this time so efficiently that not even Soos can get it open. Dipper and Mabel unanimously agree, based on the way Grunkle Stan still holds onto that pair of glasses that he always pretends is invisible when they point it out, that it is not worth mentioning.
  4.     Gompers is still alive, somehow.
  5.     In his absence, according to Amal, Reggie awakened Dr. Karate and nearly got the entire town burned to a husk, but then Dr. Karate came across one of the manatours and may or may not be living with them in the forest now? Either way, Fight Fighters has been out of order for like months.
  6.     The Society of the Blind Eye has been interrogating townsfolk as to Dipper’s whereabouts because they apparently want to recruit him now, so they’ll be, uh, around.
  7.     Stan has taken his advice and disallowed cyclopean triangle motifs of any kind from the Mystery Shack. This is a comfort.
  8.     He and Mabel did roshambo for who gets the attic and Mabel won, so Dipper guesses that secret bedroom isn’t going to be sealed off for long. Until he figures out how to crack the complex lock Grunkle Stan put on it, though, he’s had to sleep on the roof. There are no wolves up there, but an owl did almost kill him last night.
  9.     The mysteries have not even remotely waned.
  10. Li'l Gideon is out of prison and also out of town now. His absence doesn't make Dipper feel any less on edge whenever he walks past the old, faded billboard in front of what used to be the Gleeful house.



 

* * *

 

Dipper had been a late bloomer when it came to the whole “making friends” schtick. Mabel had always been the more socially inclined of the two of them—Dipper’s partygoing ways had basically consisted of flattening himself against a wall and hoping it would camouflage him, and/or attempting to impress cute girls with his vast repository of knowledge on the Fiji mermaid—and Dipper is loath to admit that he has actually spent more time with her friends than he has with his own and that this will _always_ be a fact, because time is stupid, and hates him.

Candy and Grenda aren’t so bad. Dipper had even gone to a Summerween dance with Candy, you know, once. It had been fun. The local football star, Russ Durham, had tried to beat him up for drinking too much punch, and Candy had stabbed him in the arm with her fork fingers until he went away. Dipper both admires and is terrified of Candy and Grenda, which might be what they were going for?

Well, that is the past now. Because at the tail end of his first summer in Gravity Falls, he made some pals of his own after joining the local youth marching band: Reggie Corduroy, Wendy’s second-youngest brother, who plays the euphonium and has seen every episode of _The X-Files_ ; Amal El-Hashem, a lanky and eloquent trombone player who loves giving cryptic advice and represented Oregon in the What-the-heck-ahedron Olympics two years ago; and Kevin Xu, the clarinetist, who claims to have been possessed by a ghost once, and who has all of _Tales from the Crypt_ on VHS. Dipper is pretty sure that they are his best friends in all parallel universes.

Since they’re all lifetime residents of Gravity Falls, they have, combined, a wealth of knowledge about its folklore and history, which comes in handy during Dipper and Mabel’s investigations. Reggie touts himself as the world’s leading expert on President Sir Lord Quentin Trembley, III, Esq., which Dipper will not argue with—and Dipper has _met_ Quentin Trembley.

They had all founded a newsletter together that has routinely sold fewer copies than the _Gravity Falls Gossiper_. It’s called _Just West of Weird_ and is like a crime beat for paranormal activity. They take slightly less blurry pictures than the _National Enquirer_ does, which is a damn big accomplishment in Dipper’s opinion. Kevin is the photographer. Dipper is the editor-in-chief, except when he’s back at home in Piedmont; then it’s Amal. Reggie is in charge of snacks and keeper of the home office; i.e., a treehouse that his dad and older brother, Thaddeus, built him for his thirteenth birthday. One time opossums besieged it and the moral of that story is that Dipper once started a war with the animal kingdom.

“We gotta make this summer’s issues of _Just West_ sell like never before!” Reggie shouts in that very treehouse five days after Dipper’s return, arms flung high in the air for emphasis.

“That will not be difficult,” Amal replies, “As they have never sold.”

“I bought one once,” Kevin says.

“Sales to staff are not counted in our monthly expense reports,” Reggie retorts. He crosses his arms tightly at his chest.

Dipper gives him a withering look. “I don’t think you know how expense reports work.”

They swat around ideas about what their summer wham issue will be, which local girls are the most dateable based on anime knowledge (which Kevin takes offense to, as his boyfriend is the most dateable in the entire country and has _no_ anime knowledge, so take that), and how many toes sasquatches _really_ have, and then they watch the episode of _The X-Files_ where Mulder and Scully come face-to-face with a ghost alien.

(Dipper inadvertently wonders aloud if Pacifica Northwest watches anime. Amal and Reggie send him home early, under threat of exorcism.)

 

* * *

 

“Hey, look!” Mabel hollers at a completely indiscreet volume, pointing obnoxiously. “It’s Pacifica!”

Dipper spits out his soda so hard that it goes up his nose, which is painfully embarrassing in that it is painful and also embarrassing.

He considers whirling around and flinging his bottle in the air like an idiot, but decides instead to stare intently at the vintage ad on the opposite wall for 5¢ frosted ribbon loaf. That’s what he anchors himself on as he listens to the not-distant-enough sound of Mabel shrieking joyfully and galloping away from the old timey soda bar of the general store where they’d stopped to get a snack after their morning hike to gnome country.

“Mabes!” That’s Pacifica’s voice, for sure. It sounds a little deeper, huskier, _classier_ somehow, but it’s Pacifica’s, still perfectly poised to fire off some petty insults in rapid succession, probably, and judge people for wearing brown shoes with blue pants (that was _one time_ ). “I thought you weren’t gonna be in town for like another week.” She pauses, probably because Mabel is hugging her fiercely. “Wow, you look…”

“Radical?” Mabel fills in for her. She’s wearing her brightest neon clothes from their mom’s closet of 1980s artifacts today. “The _bomb_?”

“Nice!” Pacifica says after a blatant struggle… but at least she says it in the first place, Dipper supposes. “Where’s your dweeb brother?”

And Dipper hopes and prays with every bone in his significantly less sweaty body that the telepathy he and Mabel sometimes have kicks into gear right then, as he frantically starts thinking a series of loud _No_ ’s in her direction.

“Doing dweeb stuff somewhere,” Mabel replies, cheerful and dismissive. Dipper could cry from gratitude, but he won’t; that would be dumb. “Your face looks so different when Skype isn’t making it all pixel-y! You’re, like… a cool teenager now!”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” Pacifica chuffs; maybe it’s supposed to be one of her haughty laughs. “That kind of accomplishment in _this_ town takes _work_. I hope you appreciate that.”

“Totally.” Mabel grins. Yes, Dipper can tell even without looking at her.

He grabs a newspaper from Toby Determined’s nearby hands and hides his face behind it. Classic detective move. He decides not to ask why it’s open to the obituaries.

“I’m just borrowing this,” he hisses to no one in particular because he owes Toby Determined _no explanations_.

“That’s the same thing that mugger told me last night,” Toby wails.

“—Well, hey, Pacifica, you gotta come by the Shack sometime,” Mabel is saying, bubbly. “Grunkle Stan has a whole new exhibit of shrunken heads! It’s a- _may_ - _ziiiing_ …”

“Right. Shrunken heads.” Pacifica’s laugh is wooden enough to build a house with. “Yeah, whatever, maybe.”

Dipper and Mabel had long ago discovered that whenever Pacifica responds to an invitation or request with a caustic _yeah, whatever, maybe_ , it is her way of guaranteeing her help and alliance while still saving face. Her parents don’t exactly approve of her trailing around with the Pines family on their mystery outings (or outings of any sort); Dipper is pretty sure that’s why she would only ever Skype them late at night, and also why she pretends to hate them both in public sometimes and then hurriedly sends Mabel apology texts half an hour later.

Mabel and Pacifica are practically best friends now, in a Montague and Capulet sort of way. He uses that simile because it can go either way—incorporating the boiling blood feud with the forbidden companionship. He doesn’t know how it’s supposed to work; he just knows that Pacifica hates him and always has, and the feeling is pretty mutual, no matter how many times Mabel has insisted that he let bygones be bygones. Nobody messes with his sister. Nobody makes a mockery of his proclivity for the bizarre and supernatural unless they are explicitly named on the exceptions list. And even if that weren’t the case, before his and Mabel’s extended leave of absence from Gravity Falls, Pacifica had taken up the habit of teasing him mercilessly, seeming only more gleeful the more bent out of shape he got, so he has built up a healthy wariness of her and her nice hair.

He thinks he can hear her boots clicking on the floorboards as she exits the store. Just to be safe, though, he leans just slightly further into the newspaper, reading intensely.

Mabel’s hand comes slamming down on his shoulder. He yelps, flinging the newspaper in the air until its pages separate and flutter to the ground in several different directions.

“ _Uh_ -oh…” Mabel draws out both fractions of the expression, waggling her eyebrows at him with _way_ too much delight, and he could recognize that tone of voice even if he was deaf, so before she can get any further, he barks out an adamant, “ _No_ ,” but she plows onwards, ever stalwart.

“That’s thing number two on our important summer checklist!” she squeals, punching him in the arm a few times. It would’ve hurt him when they were younger, but it doesn’t anymore—or, well, not as much.

“ _Your_ important summer checklist,” Dipper corrects her bitterly. “I want no part of it. Literally none. My priorities lie _outside_ of the ‘get-a-girlfriend’ zone.”

“Or boyfriend,” Mabel adds like she always does. “Or significant other of any kind. Keep your options open, Dipper.”

“Mystery is my girlfriend,” Dipper declares, sticking a finger in the air for emphasis.

Mabel’s snort sounds like a backfiring car. “And what could be more mysterious, my dear brother,” she whispers, slinging an arm around his shoulders to tug him close until their cheeks are squished together, “Than the unfathomable conundrum that is Pacifica Northwest’s heart?”

“Her what?” Dipper deadpans.

“Good point,” Mabel says without dropping the smile, but henceforth dropping the subject.

He thinks Pacifica and Mabel hang out a few times after that when he’s out in the woods or at the arcade with the marching band guys or pondering the transience of life on the roof for hours at a time, but he doesn’t see Pacifica again for two weeks. He is too busy being chased by a chupacabras.

**Author's Note:**

> * The title of the series is from "Radley" by French Cassettes, which was my ultimate summer jam this year.  
> * I shamelessly stole the "Mystery is my [girl]friend" line from [Bad Machinery](http://scarygoround.com), which you should be reading.  
> * Amal, Reggie, and Kevin were not-so-loosely inspired by [the Lone Gunmen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen). I feel like Dipper would need a crew like that in his life. Plus, I am _still_ a little bummed that Mabel has minor character friends but Dipper has none, however appropriate it may be. I hope that he grows out of his neuroticism as he grows older (but not _too_ much).  
>  * I'd like to sincerely thank the [glossary of 80s terms](http://www.inthe80s.com/glossary.shtml) and the _Uchouten Kazoku_ soundtrack.  
>  * I had to do more marching band research than I have ever wanted to do in my life; that is, any marching band research at all.  
> * This author's note has many links!  
> * Let me know if you've got stuff you wanna see, I dunno, I'm game.


End file.
